King Digital Entertainment

One of the world's largest casual mobile game publishers, offering premium in-app advertising inventory at massive scale as part of Microsoft's gaming division.

King Digital Entertainment is a leading interactive entertainment company best known for developing Candy Crush Saga, one of the most downloaded and highest-grossing mobile games in history. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in London, King operates a portfolio of casual mobile and social games played by hundreds of millions of users worldwide, generating significant advertising and in-app purchase revenue. The company was acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2016 for approximately $5.9 billion, and following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023, King became part of the Microsoft gaming ecosystem. From an AdTech perspective, King is significant as both an advertising publisher and a data-rich platform. Its games attract a predominantly female, broad-demographic audience with deep engagement metrics, making its in-app advertising inventory highly valuable to brand advertisers and performance marketers alike. King offers rewarded video, interstitial, and banner ad formats within its games, and its scale — with titles like Candy Crush Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Farm Heroes Saga, and Bubble Witch Saga — provides advertisers access to a massive, highly engaged mobile audience. King's business model is primarily driven by in-app purchases (freemium), supplemented by in-game advertising revenue. Its first-party data assets, derived from hundreds of millions of registered players, position it as a valuable partner for advertisers seeking brand-safe, high-engagement mobile environments. As part of Microsoft, King benefits from integration with broader Microsoft advertising and data infrastructure, further enhancing its AdTech relevance.